So far, we have zero info on who may have hijacked the bird or why. Evidence of a hijacking is based on the fact that somebody turned off the transponder at the exact time when the planes' absence from controller interaction would be unnoticed for the greatest amount of time, that radar then shows the plane deviating from course at an altitude designed to fall between normally assigned altitudes (thus minimizing the collision risk of a plan operating without its transponder). The limited information as to location (the satellite pings) we gathered from a system that is not designed to track specific location automatically, thus leaving us with the huge location "arc" from which the plane could still have travelled away for 70-90 minutes of flight time.

Who did the hijacking, under what circumstances, and for what purpose are, at present, conjectures only.


Btw, while the "oil money" may be behind the hijacking as you suggest, most of the countries with the heavy oil money have comparatively little refining capacity. As noted above, the purchase/theft of 45k gallons would likely be noticed, unless said fuel had already been purchased in smaller lots and stockpiled in advance.